A Thanksgiving Pilgrimage

William Herbert "Skip" Boyer, 32°
15817 N 6th Place, Phoenix Arizona 85022
Skip.Boyer@bestwestern.com

To be a part of the Mayflower heritage and a Mason is to stand at a special place in the American drama.

It's hard to imagine what it must have been like nearly four centuries ago. Without the church spires, power lines, traffic signals and the sounds of the internal combustion age, the tree-covered hillside overlooking the harbor at Plymouth, Massachusetts, must have been a very different place. At the crest of the hill is the churchyard. It is still called, as it was during that first killing winter, Burial Hill.

I suppose it is a dream of many descendants of the Mayflower families to visit Plymouth, to look, perhaps, for some tangible evidence of our lineage and ties to the founding days of our nation. That evidence is easily found in Plymouth, but nowhere in that pleasant New England community is it more striking than on the crest of Burial Hill.

Not long ago, my travels happily took me to Plymouth in the waning days of October, when the trees were aflame, the weather crisp and clear. After stops at a few of the requisite tourist spots, I wandered slowly up Burial Hill (the only way I do wander these days), and it was the perfect pace for this glorious morning. I was hoping to find, well, something.

Of course, I did want to find the final resting places of the Bradford family. I am twelfth in descent from the Governor. Echoing what Brother Will Rogers, 32°, once pointed out about his family, one side of mine came over on the Mayflower; the other side met the boat. Anyway, I was looking for something else, too, maybe just a feeling of satisfaction derived from having been there.

Without much effort, I did find the unpretentious obelisk that marks the end of Governor Bradford's earthly pilgrimage, as well as that of his son, Major William Bradford. In the warm, hazy sunlight that is peculiar to Indian Summer in New England, I left two roses for the Governor—one in honor of my mother, a lifelong member of Eastern Star and a DeMolay Mom, and the other to honor her father, a Master Mason who wore the Square and Compasses as proudly as his Mayflower heritage. Both had been here, too, years ago.

The weather held as Halloween edged closer. The next day, I visited Plimouth Plantation (they use the olde spelling), a living museum of 17th-century Plymouth. Within the recreated village, docents portray those who lived here in 1627. For them, the year is still 1627, and times are hard, but, God be praised, good.

Leaning against a fence was a man of medium height with a dark beard and wide-brimmed hat of the 1600s. We began to chat. He told me of the Pilgrim desire for religious freedom and of their voyage to the New World aboard the tiny Mayflower. We talked of that first winter, when nearly half the settlers died and the first graves were dug on Burial Hill. It was God's will, he said, with a knowing look. He buried his first wife there.

I finally inquired his name. With a small bow, he said he was William Bradford and that he had the honor to serve as Governor of New Plimouth. I was surprised, then introduced myself as his grandson, 12 generations removed. That puzzled him. He just couldn't understand how that could be, save by witchcraft. Was I a witch? I assured him that I was not. He remained suspicious but allowed as how we might be cousins or some such. Had I arrived on the second ship?

Listening to him, it was easy to forget the marker on Burial Hill and the intervening centuries. It was easy to forget that this man was an actor, that he had another name than William Bradford, probably wore jeans and Nikes after work and drove an automobile with a Japanese name. For a very short, warm moment like that brief time between waking and dreaming, he was Governor Bradford, and I had found something I was looking for at Plymouth.

Before I left the following day, I walked back up Burial Hill and said a small prayer of thanks at the Governor's marker. To be a part of the Mayflower heritage and a Mason is to stand at a special place in the American drama, one that offers an intensely personal perspective on American history.

There was a chill in the air, the thin leading edge of winter on the wind, as I walked back down from Burial Hill. I don't think I would like it in Massachusetts in the heart of winter. I can imagine what it must be like. What it must have been like.

A Thanksgiving Prayer
Supreme Grand Master, we thank Thee for this food, for the mystic ties that unite us, and for Your constant protection of all Masonic friends in every part of the earth. May Your guidance always make us loyal and loving one to another. "This commandment have we from Him, that he who loveth God loveth his brother also." Amen.

Bro. Robert Louis Stevenson

William H. Boyer is the Director, Executive Communications, Best Western International, Inc. He is a member of Paradise Valley–Silver Trowel Lodge No. 29, Phoenix, Arizona, and serves as editor of the Lodge's Trestle Board. Brother Boyer is a member of the Philalethes Society and writes a regular column in the Society's popular magazine. A Chevalier of the Order of DeMolay, a member of the Brotherhood of the Blue Forget-Me-Not and of the Scottish Rite Bodies of Phoenix, Arizona, he is a native of Omaha, Nebraska, and holds the prestigious Accredited Business Communicator (ABC) designation from the International Association of Business Communicators. Brother Boyer has earned more than 70 regional and national awards for his writing and editorial work.